Oxford Quartet Clinches Prestigious Leverhulme Prizes

Awarded by the Leverhulme Trust, Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise the achievement of outstanding research scholars whose future career is exceptionally promising, and whose work has made original and significant contributions to knowledge as well as shown sustained international impact.

Only 30 prizes are awarded throughout the UK each year, with the 2024 prizes covering the following subject areas: Classics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Politics and International Relations, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts. Each prize winner receives £100,000 which can be used for any purpose related to the advancement of their research. The University of Oxford was the only institution this year to have four award winners.

About the 2024 Oxford prize winners:

Associate Professor Natalia Ares. Credit: John Cairns.

Associate Professor Natalia Ares (Department of Engineering Science), who received the Philip Leverhulme Prize for her work on experimental quantum physics.

The focus of Associate Professor Ares' research is quantum technologies, in particular controlling nanoscale circuits to unlock their potential for new technological applications and uncover fundamental physical phenomena. Specifically, her group works with semiconductor quantum devices. Their work explores thermodynamics at the nanoscale level and develops machine learning based-approaches for the control and characterization of quantum circuits. Ultimately, this will inform the construction of quantum machines such as nanoscale engines and novel computing architectures.

She said: 'Winning the Philip Leverhulme Prize is a great honour. It is a recognition of our group's achievements and of its future potential. This prize will enable me to lay the foundations for bold new projects and enhance the capabilities of my laboratory.'

Professor Federica Genovese.

Professor Federica Genovese (Department of Politics and International Relations), who was awarded a prize for her work on the international politics and political economy of climate change.

Professor Genovese is one among the first political scientists to advocate for a bottom-up understanding of the conflict that societies are experiencing around climate mitigation and adaptation policies. Her research encompasses various levels of political action, combining the study of international climate negotiations with mapping local level attitudes among the public and also companies. Professor Genovese will use the prize money to investigate the politics of geolocated firms exposed to costly climate policy adoption and climate change-induced asset erosion. This will include detailed research into how firms that are exposed to these risks mobilize for or against climate policy, collecting data from various European countries as well as emerging economies.

She said: 'I am beyond honoured to win the Philip Leverhulme Prize. I thank my mentors, co-authors, colleagues, and family for encouraging me to freely and ambitiously explore research questions I am passionate about, and the Trust for choosing me and my work this year.'

Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flugge.

Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flugge (Department of Experimental Psychology), whose prize recognises her work on experimental psychology, and cognitive and computational neuroscience.

Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flugge's research group studies human cognitive processes, with a particular focus on motivation and decision making. She intends to use the Philip Leverhulme Prize funds to continue her research on human decision-making and behavioural flexibility. This will involve developing innovative experiments which combine novel ultrasound brain stimulation techniques alongside more realistic methods of measuring people's behaviour, such as virtual reality simulations or tracking behaviour over time through smartphone apps. This will enable her to explore the causal relationships between different decision-making processes in real-world situations. Her long-term vision is to conduct fundamental research that provides a platform for translation to psychiatric disease.

She said: 'This recognition is a testament to the incredible people I've had the fortune to work with throughout my career. It also reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science and psychology, highlighting the importance of collaboration across different fields. I believe it's this rich exchange of ideas that truly drives innovation.'

Professor Louise Slater. Credit: Viktoriia Pyrohova.

Professor Louise Slater (School of Geography and the Environment), whose prize was for her work on floods, droughts, and climate impacts.

Professor Slater leads the Hydro-Climate Extremes research group, which develops innovative computational approaches to detect and predict the impacts of changes in climate and land cover on water and weather extremes. Her primary areas of study include flooding, droughts, extreme heat events, and heavy rainfall. She intends to use the prize money to recruit a postdoctoral researcher dedicated to developing new causal and explainable artificial intelligence methods for analysing extreme water and weather events. By collaborating with experts in machine learning, her aim is to construct large-scale models that leverage observational data to assess the impact of warming and land cover changes on heavy rainfall.

She said: 'Receiving the Philip Leverhulme Prize is an exciting acknowledgment of the incredible students, early career researchers, and collaborators that I have had the privilege of working with. I am genuinely optimistic about how artificial intelligence and machine learning can help us better understand and prepare for some of the impacts of the climate crisis, such as heavy rainfall, extreme heat, and flooding.'

More information about the Philip Leverhulme Prizes can be found on the Leverhulme Trust website .